Technical Field
The following disclosure relates to a sheet conveying apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
There is known a conventional sheet conveying apparatus including a conveyor, a discharge unit, and a plurality of stoppers.
The conveyor conveys a sheet along a conveyance path. The discharge unit constitutes a portion of the conveyor and discharges the sheet conveyed along the conveyance path, onto a support surface of the discharge tray. The stoppers are provided on the support surface. Each of the stoppers is spaced apart from the discharge unit at a particular distance in a discharge direction in which the sheet is discharged. The stoppers are also spaced apart from each other in the discharge direction. Each of the stoppers is mounted on the discharge tray such that a position of each stopper is changeable between a position at which the stopper protrudes from the support surface and a position at which the stopper is stored in the discharge tray.
The sheet conveying apparatus further includes a size detector for detecting the size of the conveyed sheet, a controller such as a CPU, and a stopper driving device such as a solenoid.
In the case where sheets of small size are conveyed in the sheet conveying apparatus, the controller drives the stopper driving device, based on a result of detection of the size detector, to cause the stopper corresponding to the small sheets to protrude from the support surface. When discharged onto the support surface, the small sheets are aligned by contacting the stopper protruding from the support surface.
In the case where sheets of large size are conveyed, on the other hand, the controller drives the stopper driving device, based on a result of detection of the size detector, to store the stopper corresponding to the small sheets into the discharge tray such that the stopper does not interfere with conveyance of the large sheets being discharged onto the support surface. The sheet conveying apparatus thus prevents a jam caused by the large sheets being brought into contact with the stopper corresponding to the small sheets.